Last year, two excellent books were published that address in very different
ways the same subject: the role of the feminine in ceremonial magick.
The first, Lioness of the Sun, by Lorraine Tartasky, is a novel approach
to the ancient traditions of Egypt, while the second, Path of the Priestess,
by Sharron Rose, presents a modern, memoir-driven how-to book on what
it takes to really follow the path of a priestess. When read together,
a curious sense of continuity can be felt; the past is not so far away
after all, and some human aspirations and practices have changed very
little indeed.

Lioness of the Sun opens with a powerful depiction of the experience
of shape-shifting into a lioness, as it introduces the book's main characters,
the Goddess Sekhmet and Her High Priestess. It moves smoothly into the
romance at the heart of the book, that of two shipwrecked lovers from
ancient Crete, Marissa and Arion. Marissa is fated to become the High
Priestess of Sekhmet, with results that affect the course of Egyptian
history. Woven into this tale are some amazing insights into the nature
of magick in the Egyptian worldview.

Here's one:

"In order to experience and communicate with forces beyond human
comprehension, the mind creates a symbolic landscape filled with personalities
representing inconceivable energies. The consciousness may call upon these
energies to manifest within charged symbols and there find a continuum
in which to construct limitless, eternal powers."

That's about as close as I've ever seen anyone get to a definition of
"magick." The Golden Dawn's Neophyte ritual supplies the same
basic key - "By Names and Images are all Powers awakened and re-awakened"
- but this elegant saying misses some of the directness of Ms. Tartasky's
definition. Within the context of ancient Egypt, Ms. Tartasky's version
has the added bonus of the rest of the novel in which to see this theme
develop.

Lioness of the Sun is a romance about magick itself, the intoxication
that comes from direct contact with the Egyptian Netjers. The novel follows
Marissa and Arion as they find their destiny, and eventually each other
once again, in the intrigues and power politics of the court of the female
Pharaoh Hatshepsut. While the story is certainly compelling enough to
keep the reader interested, I found myself thumbing ahead, looking for
nuggets of magick. Chapter sixteen, Marissa's initiation into the mysteries,
is simply superb.

But it is chapter twenty-six that supplies, in a simple novelistic form,
one of the great magickal truths. The Goddess Sekhmet is disturbed that
Hatshepsut's plans for a dynasty has failed, and blames the Goddess Shait,
who is the expression of Ma'at, or harmony, as fate. As they argue, Shait
reminds Sekhmet of a most basic truth:

"The Lioness began, the Scarab proceeded, then the Twins, followed
by the Bull. Each has had its defining characteristics, which are above
and beyond the control of the Gods and men alike. We all exist within
the parameters of a greater framework, and that is Ma'at, supreme of Destiny,
which is I."

The book ends with a sort of promise for the future:

"Sekhmet had seen into the future and with that sight came knowledge
that although the cycles of the heavens would bring both desired and dreaded
change, and that in time all but Aset (Isis) would be forgotten, there
would come a day when Sekhmet, Eye of Re, Defender of Ma'at, Lioness of
the Sun would be remembered."

If we consider the zodiacal ages listed above, then we are now, at the
cusp of Aquarius/Pisces, one half a Great Year, roughly 13,000 solar years,
from the Time of Sekhmet when Ma'at was supreme. Could this be the moment
when Sekhmet is suddenly remembered?

Well, according to our second book, The Path of the Priestess,
that's exactly what's happening.

Part One of The Path of the Priestess is subtitled: "A Modern-day
Odyssey to Discover the Mysteries of the Goddess and Her Sacred Realms
of Light." Sharron Rose takes us from her middle-class Jewish upbringing,
through the radical changes of the 1960s, the world of theatre and dance
in New York City, the psychedelics seventies and on to where the story
truly begins as she lands in India to study classical Hindu dance. This
leads her, in time, to Tantra, Tibetan Dzogchen and eventually to the
Goddess Sekhmet.

As a magickal current, the reappearance of the Goddess Sekhmet is mainly
the work of Dr. Robert Masters. In the late 1960s, Dr. Masters experienced
a series of encounter with the Goddess, as described in chapter three
of Ms. Rose's book, and in his book The Goddess Sekhmet. At that point
he was working with his wife Dr. Jean Houston, on several groundbreaking
books, such as Mind Games, mentioned by John Lennon in his song of the
same name, and Varieties of Psychedelic Experiences. The encounter with
the Goddess deepened his appreciation of how altered states of consciousness
can be used to gain valuable insight and information.

Although Ms. Rose's encounter with Dr. Masters occurred much later, in
the early 1990s, it was fortuitous, apparently, for both. It came at the
peak of Ms. Rose's personal quest for understanding, and seems to have
given her the validation necessary to move out on her own as a teacher.
The information on Sekhmet is powerful, including an interesting rendition
of the nature of psychic reality from the Egyptian viewpoint that, while
there are differences, adds to our understanding of the same subject given
in Lioness of the Sun.

After the section with Dr. Masters, The Path of Priestess moves back
toward the western tradition with a chapter on alchemy, Black Madonnas
and the Cathars, mixed in with accounts of Ms. Rose's dance work as Isis.
Part one closes with a chapter on the Great Ages that the Goddess Shait
might recognize and agree with. This helps put the personal information
into its proper perspective, and assists the reader in the shift to the
second section.

"Awakening the Divine Feminine," Part Two of The Path of the
Priestess, is a most informative work on the subject of awakening and
working with subtle energies. Ms. Rose first takes the modern idea of
feminism to task, and then proceeds to teach the reader how to strike
those poses of "Majesty," and "Divine Pride" that
might have been used by Hatshepsut to quiet the court at Wastet. Ceremonial
magick as a form of divine feminine empowerment is something that strikes
the almost exclusively male magickal community with a certain amount of
nervousness. But a book like this one is long overdue.

The meditations in this section are superb, and the art is simple, direct
and fluent, supplying a welcome break from the publicity pictures of Part
One. The drawings of various feminine figures with chakra images superimposed
that accompany each major meditation are an inspired addition that helps
the reader grasp the feeling of each interior working.

These two books deserve to be on every magickal bookshelf, right next
to Mary Greer's Women of the Golden Dawn.